Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Princess Have Been Praised For Being “Progressive” While Our Friend Spent Her Birthday in Jail

In this op-ed, Urooba Jamal, Atiya Jaffar, and Rauza Khan explain how early branding of the new crown prince of Saudi Arabia as “progressive” has obscured his crackdown on Saudi activists — including the arrest of their friend, Loujain al-Hathloul.

Loujain and at least 14 other Saudi women’s rights activists were arrested or detained following their outright resistance to and open criticism of the driving ban and other women’s rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. These activists were arrested before the driving ban reform came into effect; it’s appalling that arrests and detainments of women’s rights activists have continued long after.

While Loujain and her compatriots face the possibility of 20 years in prison on allegations of “suspicious contact with foreign parties,” per the BBC, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and his government are reaping praise and admiration for the work that these activists started in their efforts to abolish the driving ban.

We met Loujain when we were students at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. We have been proud to call her our friend as she has taken the world by storm, making international headlines for her bold, outspoken actions in defiance of the ban, as early as 2014. That year, Loujain was detained for the first time, for 73 days. Two years later, after speaking out against the country’s male guardianship system, Loujain landed in a Saudi jail again.

This year, on May 15, Loujain and at least 14 other women’s rights activists were rounded up in the kingdom and detained by Saudi authorities. According to the United Nations, it is “unclear whether charges have been laid in any of these cases.” Reportedly, Loujain and her fellow activists have been denied contact with their families, friends, and lawyers during this time, and face the possibility of 20 years in prison. Sadly, outrage over these arrests has been largely overshadowed by the kingdom’s timely overturn of the ban — which came into effect just a month after the activists’ arrests.

Knowing this, we were surprised to see the June issue of Vogue Arabia featuring Princess Hayfa bint Abdullah al-Saud, the daughter of the late king. In the cover story, she was described as “trailblazing”. The article made no mention of our friend Loujain or others, such as Iman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef, who had been taken into custody weeks earlier, held incommunicado, with Saudi media accusing them of being “traitors” to the kingdom. We are disappointed that the princess, a woman whose family issued the ban in the first place, and whose wealth afforded her the privilege of never having to struggle because of it, was portrayed as its vanquisher.

It is for this reason we decided to stage our own photo shoot, a reenactment of the original that captures the real trailblazers behind the overturned ban. Since Loujain’s friends and peers are mostly Saudi or Muslim women, we wore T-shirts emblazoned with their names, calling for their freedom. The princess had posed in a red convertible in the desert; we used our friend’s Nissan in a deserted parking lot. Vogue Arabia lauded the royal family; we are demanding the royal family set our friend and the others free.

Advertisement

As the honeymoon from the overturned ban wanes, international media and organizations are finally starting to take notice of the recent wave of arrests. During the week of August 1, according to Amnesty International, two more prominent Saudi women activists, Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sada, were reportedly arrested, sparking condemnation worldwide. In the latest turn of events, Canada’s criticism of these arrests has soured diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Canadian ambassador to the kingdom has been expelled and Riyadh has frozen all new trade and investment with Ottawa, and the kingdom’s foreign ministry tweeted that Canada’s concern for the activists is an “attack” on them and an example of “interfering” in their internal affairs.

As this drama intensifies, according to Global News, the kingdom is reportedly revoking scholarships and exchange programs for Saudi students in Canada, who number as many as 8,000. Reuters reports that Riyadh has also gone so far as to pull all Saudi patients out of Canadian hospitals. In May, our alma mater’s president, Santa J. Ono, called on the Canadian government to work with its Saudi Arabian counterparts to ensure Loujain’s release. While we welcome this support, we would like to emphasize that we reject any calls for imperialist intervention, and assumptions that Muslim or Saudi women need “saving.” As Loujain and her courageous friends have shown us, Saudi women can fiercely and successfully fight for their own liberation. Our role as allies is to celebrate their work and draw visibility to their unjust detentions.

Our photo shoot took place on the heels of a public rally we planned in Vancouver after we first heard of Loujain’s May arrest. In yet another frightening turn, on August 22, news broke that, according to Human Rights Watch and other groups, five activists in the kingdom face the death penalty. Those activists include Israa al-Ghomgham, who has fought for Shia minority rights — and who is the first Saudi women who could face this fate for rights-related work. Charges against her include incitement to protest and providing moral support to rioters. Human rights groups say this sets a dangerous precedent for all detained activists.

We are prepared to continue to raise our voices until our friend and her compatriots receive justice.